Yesterday, it was a Critics Choice Award nomination. Today, it is the cover of TIME! Quite the 24 hours for Ms. Laverne Cox, especially considering today just so happens to be her birthday.

“What a wonderful bday present! Yes today is my birthday and I am on the cover of TIME magazine,” Cox said on get Facebook page. “I realize this is way bigger than me and about a tipping point in our nation’s history where it is no longer acceptable for trans lives to be stigmatized, ridiculed, criminalized and disregarded. This is for my trans siblings out there and for anyone who has ever been told that who you know yourself to be at your core is not legitimate. You are who you know yourselves to be.”